Dollar General will build the store at 1937 Main St., across from McDonald’s and Bi-Mart, the former location Rons Radiator Shop, which has been vacant since it burned in 2007. The new building will be 9,100 square feet, according to plans.

Typically, the store would have four employees on site, including a manager.

“We would like to break ground no later than April,” Mike Stults, development manager with Cross Development, told the commission. The construction would take 120 days, so he anticipated opening a store no later than August. Cross Development represents Dollar General in developing the property.

Based on data from four studies of Dollar General parking lots, Cross Development requested a variance from the city’s requirement of 42 parking spaces for the business to require only 29 spaces. The commission also approved a variance from the 30-foot maximum driveway width to allow a 36-foot 2-inch driveway.

Products range from shampoo, toys and cleaners to coffee, video games, electronics and batteries. Corporate informational materials describe it as the nation’s largest small-box retailer, opening in 1939 as J.L. Turner and Son Wholesale. Today the company operates more than 13,000 stores in 43 states.

“What they do is complement the community,” Stults said. “They don’t drive anybody out of business. They create a niche. Dollar General is very community oriented. They like to do stuff with libraries.”

The dollar General Literacy Foundation was founded in 1993 in honor Dollar General’s founder, J.L. Turner, who was functionally illiterate, with a third-grade education.